"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron"
H.L. Mencken. July 26, 1920 The Baltimore Sun
Trump’s wrecking ball is doing a pretty good job on my retirement portfolio, and I suppose on the portfolios of many other senior citizens.
The notion that tariffs will reinvigorate a 20th century manufacturing base in a country that has moved to a 21st century service economy is not only unrealistic, but threatens US leadership around the world, the status of the Dollar as the world reserve currency, along with the freedom to dictate world prices by manipulating the value of the dollar. This is a luxury the Chinese and the EU would embrace, if they could. Where is the labor force going to be obtained? Who is going to pay for the new factories? The US has declined since World War II in its manufacturing base over a period of 80 years. How will all that come back in two?
Where will the skilled workers come from? How will the US consumer deal with the inflation and the shortage of goods?
By the time Trump finishes his hare-brained schemes and his group of cabinet twats have finished their Signal chats, the stock market will have surrendered another thousand points, as trillions of wealth vanish in a puff of Elon Musk’s exploding rocket ships.
Musk wants to populate the red planet. Rover photos show an airless desert, unfit for human life. Musk should leave now for Mars to colonize it in preparation for the explosion of the sun which scientists predict will roast the Earth in about 5 billion years hence, but also will probably roast Mars as well. Go Elon! Take a fleet of your panel falling off ugly exploding cyber trucks with you.
Meanwhile our angry FOX host SECDEF parades around spreading “warrior culture” to career, professional, usually West Point or Annapolis prodigies who arose through an intensely competitive military meritocracy to become 4 star flag officers who now have to keep their mouths shut and their profiles low to avoid being fired by an abusive, petulant, alcohol-challenged dufus.
In the White House, Trump is Trump vacillating between one policy or another. Tariff or no tariff?
Support for our allies or not? Defend NATO or not? Cozy up to Vladimir or not? Pissed of at him or not? Deport everyone or not? It’s like having that slinky spring that your parents gave you and wondering where it would go. Deal or no deal? A kind of Howie Mandel show on Elephant juice.
All this begs the question of whether the elitists are right. The lip service paid by politicians about the wisdom of the American people and how smart they are, how they usually make the right choice in the end? I wonder how many people in the congress believe that pablum. Not wanting to insult their constituents, the most ignorant of whom have elected the most ignorant of congressmen and senators. I mean these are people who do not pass the Jay Leno questions.
Q. “Who is George Washington?”
A. “Mayor of New York.”
Q. “Who was the first president?”
A. “Bush.”
Q. “The Father or the Son?”
A. “Was there more than one.?”
You get the picture. If Alexander Hamilton was right the above is proof of that. Only when Hamilton was around people actually read newspapers and books and did not get their information from Tik Tok. And he, the great genius who created our financial and banking system was not ever president because Thomas Jefferson’s views of the common man rang truer to the emotional appeal of the public, who may not have liked Hamilton’s persona. But Jefferson was a spendthrift and Hamilton was killed in a duel on the banks of the Hudson by Aaron Burr who Hamilton had called a “dangerous” man after years of political rivalry, supporting his own rival, Jefferson against Burr.
Politicians do not duel anymore; perhaps they should. Can you imagine Joe Biden and Donald Trump facing off at forty paces with muskets? The man who cheats at golf versus the man who stayed too long.